Manifesto

Donghua Limited’s Manifesto 2017

Our Manifesto prioritises the areas we feel, as the UK’s arm of one of the world’s largest chain manufacturers, are most important to our customers. It sets out our commitment and how we intend to address these key priorities during 2017.

Our Key Priorities:

Donghua guarantees innovation & high performance chain solutions. Donghua Limited is the UK subsidiary of the Hangzhou Donghua Chain Group. Based on the east coast of China, our manufacturing hub produces in excess of 30 million metres of finished chain per year which is distributed world-wide.

Donghua maintains a continued commitment to manufacturing high quality chain products and holds a number of key quality assurance accreditations which demonstrates our commitment to quality management.

The UK market demands high quality chain and Donghua Limited is exceptionally well placed to deliver against this requirement. We remain committed to investment in R&D which results in specialist and innovative chain production, employing our own hardening facilities, advanced surface treatment techniques and delivering chain within close tolerances of 0.5DIN accuracy in a wide range of materials and alloys. Because we manufacture every component of our chain we are able to assure the quality and assure full certification and traceability.

We will continue to invest in product development at our manufacturing HQ and within our UK base to bring only the highest quality chain to market.

Donghua is leading the way in terms of innovation with the launch in 2017 of our Chain ID App – the first of its type in the sector. We have developed the Online Chain ID tool available on our website into a revolutionary free mobile App, which gives our customer’s sales engineers access to the Chain ID tool whilst they’re on-site. What’s more, we can identify replacement chain within one Hour*, meaning sales engineers can identify the chain, advise their customers and secure an order whilst still at their appointment!

The online tool and App currently identifies Leaf Chain, Agricultural Chain & Attachments and Standard Roller Chain & Attachments, but further developments are planned including Conveyor Chain and Sprockets.

*Response times quoted apply to enquiries received between 08.30am-4pm Monday-Friday. Enquiries received outside of these hours will be answered next working day.

Donghua Limited pledges not to sell to end–users (your customers).A unique benefit of working with Donghua is that we guarantee not to sell direct to end-users, which our existing Product Partners and Stockists value, but is something that other chain manufacturers do not.

We know that Stockists in the UK are frustrated by having to compete with other chain manufacturers who sell to their customers. Donghua does not and will not do this as we recognise the value of having a strong network. When we receive an enquiry for Donghua chain, we pass them directly onto their nearest Donghua approved Stockist.

We will continue to promote our Product Partners and Stockists as the first port of call for Donghua chain.

Donghua Limited will support our network of Product Partners & Stockists.Donghua sells its chain products in the UK through its growing network of Product Partners and Stockists. Product Partners are organisations within the UK who are leading players in the distribution of chain either by geographic region (ie Scotland) or by chain type (ie conveyor chain) and promote Donghua chain first above any other chain brands. Stockists are recognised stockists of Donghua’s chain range and are carefully selected to meet Donghua’s exacting standards of providing a seamless extension of our sales team.

Because we value the role they play in building our presence in the UK, our Product Partners and Stockists benefit from preferential costs together with sales, technical and marketing support from Donghua.

Our website provides a marketing opportunity through our interactive Locate a Stockist map which displays all our Product Partners, Stockists and Distributors across the UK and Eire and enables customers to identify their nearest Donghua dealer. This is one of the most popular pages on our website.

Donghua supports our Product Partners and Stockists with POS and marketing materials, targeted advertising campaigns referring customers to their local stockist, regular updates via e-shot and provision of financial and/or marketing/sales support at industry events and exhibitions. We pledge to work closely with stockists committed to promoting the Donghua brand to help develop relevant supporting materials and continue to identify key events and marketing opportunities to support their own sales efforts.

Donghua Limited promises to maintain a huge UK stockholding of popular chain products.Since its inauguration in 2009, Donghua Limited has tripled its warehouse capacity; we now have 25,000 sq feet of warehouse space which holds over 1000 tonnes of chain at our head office in the Midlands.

Our Product Partners also maintain high levels of stockholding of Donghua chain in order to fulfil orders from their customer base.

We currently deliver across the UK mainland next day. We also offer Same Day delivery, charges apply.

We have recently expanded our stock of Sprockets having historically supplied the UK market with only a small range, relying on our European sister company to fulfil orders. However, due to customer demand, we now stock more Taper Bore Sprockets and Bushes and Pilot Bore Sprockets and Plate Wheels directly in the UK.

With our larger warehouse facility in the UK, we will continue to expand our stockholding of our most popular chain products to ensure we can meet delivery requirements and increased customer demand.

Donghua Limited will grow our UK manufacture of bespoke Attachment Chain and Special Chain.
During the last four years we have invested heavily in developing our UK Workshop and assembly facilities for Attachment Chain with the intention of bringing chain manufacture back to the UK.

Our UK base includes a chain length measuring machine - we are one of only a few manufacturers to have this equipment in the UK – which is capable of measuring within 10 microns up to five metres of chain.

We also pre-load (pre-stretch) chain as standard to eliminate the initial elongation often found in ‘in-house’ built attachment chain. The means Donghua chain is ready and easy to fit from the box.

Where precise positioning of more than two chains running in parallel is required, the chains are matched within a close tolerance using our sophisticated measuring equipment. We can cut large pitch chain and rotary chain using our 100 tonne presses.

Our pneumatic press riveter rivets attachment chain to the desired configuration to maintain uniform and consistent assembly, and our two hydraulic cutting presses means bespoke special attachment chain can be cut to order.

Our Hot-dip lubrication process, including facilities for large chain and various lubricants subject to application, has been a huge success and is very popular in the UK.

We plan more investment in our UK assembly facilities in order to meet customer demands for bespoke in-house built attachment chain and special chain.

Donghua will continue to fight to protect the UK from inferior chain supply.The Hangzhou Donghua Chain Group has been manufacturing high quality chain products for over 25 years and for much of this time our chain was sold in Europe under more popular, well-known brand names. We have steadily grown our market presence under our own Donghua brand and are now one of the UK’s leading chain suppliers and the first choice for many customers.

We recognise the importance of providing our customers with high quality yet cost effectively priced chain solutions. We guarantee no other supplier in the UK can beat us on price for like-for-like standard roller chain. We will never produce inferior chain or under-cut our competitors. There are, unfortunately, rogue suppliers who continue to produce inferior products (which raise H&S concerns), under-cut prices in order to make a sale and/or make unrealistic promises. This is not a sustainable business model and we urge companies to think twice before accepting their products. We will continue to highlight our concerns about these companies and their products and fight to protect the UK market from suppliers of inferior chain.

For a chain manufacturer you can trust to raise the standard of UK chain supply, vote Donghua.

If you would like to talk to us about any of our key priorities for 2017 and how you can work with us, please contact Bob Wellsbury, managing director of Donghua Limited, on b.wellsbury@donghua.co.uk or phone 01902 866 200.